connect Madrid and the Atlantic with a canal

If all roads lead to Rome… Why couldn’t Madrid have at least one that connected it directly and, above all, navigably with the Atlantic? The idea sounds macaronic, but for a while it seemed to take on all the logic in the world in the man’s head. king Philip II.

He had reasons to love it, of course. At the end of the 16th century Spain received baited ships with the generous treasures arrived from the Americas in the form of precious metals, spices and wood that were unloaded in the south of the country. From there they had to continue to Madrid, court seaton a journey almost as complicated and dangerous as the voyage across the Atlantic.

In your journey towards the center of the plateau The carts had to cross paths that today would make even the most painted of people hiccup, roads that were poorly maintained and that became muddy every time it rained. As if that were not enough and as a cherry on top, there was the constant stalking of the bandits of Sierra Morena. Result: transportation was complicated, not without risks and made the merchandise more expensive.

Philip II wanted to remedy all that.

And I thought I knew how.

In Flanders He had seen the benefit that could be obtained from river transport thanks to locks and canals, elements that, he concluded, could also well be used in the Iberian Peninsula. In the 16th century there were no swamps to hinder the passage of ships, the flow of the rivers favored it and…—that is the key—Portugal was under the rule of the Austrianswhich made it easier for Madrid to look, not at the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Cádiz or the Cantabrian Sea, but directly at Lisbon.

With an eye on Portugal

The father of the idea, the mastermind in charge of convincing the many skeptics and carrying out such a technical challenge was the Italian Juan Bautista Antonellia military engineer who had already served under Charles V and noted for his fortification designs.

In April 1581 Antonelli obtained a royal certificate which gave him carte blanche with a clear purpose: “to recognize and see the Tagus River from the town of Abrantes (…) to Alcántara to see how it could be made navigable.” The ultimate goal of the company, however, went beyond the Portuguese or Extremadura border. What was proposed was expand channels so that ships could navigate the Tagus from Lisbon to Aranjuez and continue from there along the Jarama and Manzanares.

As detailed by Pedro Gargantilla in the diary ABCthe tremendously ambitious idea was to enable a navigable route of about 600 kilometers that would overcome 650 meters of elevation difference.

Antonelli did not beat around the bush and shortly after presented to King Philip II in the Cortes of Tomar a project that would allow the Tajo to be crossed between Lisbon and Alcántara, in Extremadura. Austria liked the idea. And he liked it so much. Savoring the advantages that the project would bring for commerce, its benefits for the Royal Treasury and even the prestige it would give him beyond the borders of his empire, the monarch did not take long to roll out the red carpet to Antonelli.

Three months later, Felipe II released funds and gave instructions to the mayor of Alcántara and the authorities of Castile to fix things for him. as easy as possible to Italian.

Two years later, in 1583, Antonelli concluded the works to condition the Tagus between Alcántara and Abrantes and in 1584 Philip II himself traveled from Madrid to Aranjuez to see with his own eyes how that company was progressing. he was so excited and whom he had trusted so much. At the beginning of 88—remember the Royal Academy of History (RAH)—a test was even organized with seven barges that traveled in 15 days between Toledo and Lisbon.

Did that mean that the project was already on track? Did the people of Madrid see how Philip II’s dream of seeing the galleons arrive at the gates of the capital came true? Was the bank of the Manzanares prepared for a deployment of docks, docks and mooring bollards?

Not quite

The delirious dream of Philip II encountered three implacable enemies: death, lack of funds and… England. And all three struck in such a short time that they knocked out the plan.

The first blow came in March 1588 with the death of Antonelli. His replacement at the head of the project was taken by his nephew, Cristobal de Roda Antonellibut the company no longer raised its head and just ten years later its other great promoter, Philip II himself, died. The project was also not favored by the enormous investment allocated by Austria to the “Invincible Army” with which he intended to bend the pulse of England nor the serious economic difficulties that the State treasury went through.

If that scenario was not complex enough on its own, some time later, in 1668, it was added the “divorce” with Portugalwhich complicated a project that aspired to skip The Stripe. The dream of opening a navigable canal between Madrid and the Atlantic in the 16th century was simply frustrated. From revolutionary infrastructure it became curious chapter in the historical chronicle of the Austrians.

Of course, the idea continued for a long time after Philip II and Antonelli were buried.

Throughout the following decades, other renowned technicians and monarchs of the House of Bourbons, such as the engineers Luis Carduchi, Carlos Lemaur, Felipe IV, Fernando VI, Charles IIICharles IV or Ferdinand VII, also proposed improving river communications, although not always looking to Portugal. Interest shifted to the south or even to the waters of the Cantabrian. His efforts also left a mark perfectly visibleeven today.

Fruit of that desire to improve communications are, for example, the Royal Manzanares Canalbetween the Toledo Bridge and the Jarama River; the canals of Aragon and Castile or that of Guadarramawhich aspired to create a navigable waterway more than 700 kilometers that linked Madrid and Seville by river and for which the gigantic Gasco Damnow in ruins.

Images | Nicole Reyes (Unsplash) and Manuel MV (Flickr), Prado Museum

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